Obama’s Jobs Record Looks Better

When President Barack Obama was reelected in November, it was despite the fact that the economy had added a paltry 124,000 jobs since the day he took office. Or at least that’s what we thought at the time.

It now turns out the job market performed a bit better during Mr. Obama’s first term than previously believed. Factoring in the various revisions released Friday, the economy actually added 594,000 jobs through October of last year, the final month before voters headed to the polls on Nov. 6. And job growth has accelerated in the months since, with November coming in especially strong at 247,000 new jobs.

All told, payrolls grew by 1.2 million between Mr. Obama’s first inaugural address and his second. Growth would have been stronger still if governments at the federal, state and local levels hadn’t cut more than 700,000 jobs in the past four years. Looking only at the private sector, payrolls rose by 1.9 million during Mr. Obama’s first term.

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